"I can't tell you what there is in the life of such a woman."

"Imagine--when she's so perfect!" she exclaimed thoughtfully. "Ah she kept me off--she kept me off! Her charming manner is in itself a kind of contempt. It's an abyss--it's the wall of China. She has a hard polish, an inimitable surface, like some wonderful porcelain that costs more than you'd think."

"Do you want to become like that?" Sherringham asked.

"If I could I should be enchanted. One can always try."

"You must act better than she," he went on.

"Better? I thought you wanted me to give it up."

"Ah I don't know what I want," he cried, "and you torment me and turn me inside out! What I want is you yourself."

"Oh don't worry," said Miriam--now all kindly. Then she added that Mademoiselle Voisin had invited her to "call"; to which Sherringham replied with a certain dryness that she would probably not find that necessary. This made the girl stare and she asked: "Do you mean it won't do on account of mamma's prejudices?"

"Say this time on account of mine."

"Do you mean because she has lovers?"

"Her lovers are none of our business."

"None of mine, I see. So you've been one of them?"

"No such luck!"

"What a pity!" she richly wailed. "I should have liked to see that. One must see everything--to be able to do everything." And as he pressed for what in particular she had wished to see she replied: "The way a woman like that receives one of the old ones."

Peter gave a groan at this, which was at the same time partly a laugh, and, turning away to drop on a bench, e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed: "You'll do--you'll do!"

He sat there some minutes with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. His friend remained looking at the portrait of Rachel, after which she put to him: "Doesn't such a woman as that receive--receive every one?"

"Every one who goes to see her, no doubt."

"And who goes?"

"Lots of men--clever men, eminent men."

"Ah what a charming life! Then doesn't she go out?"

"Not what we Philistines mean by that--not into society, never. She never enters a lady's drawing-room."

"How strange, when one's as distinguished as that; except that she must escape a lot of stupidities and _corvees_. Then where does she learn such manners?"

"She teaches manners, _a ses heures_: she doesn't need to learn them."

"Oh she has given me ideas! But in London actresses go into society,"

Miriam continued.

"Oh into ours, such as it is. In London _nous melons les genres_."

"And shan't I go--I mean if I want?"

"You'll have every facility to bore yourself. Don't doubt it."

"And doesn't she feel excluded?" Miriam asked.

"Excluded from what? She has the fullest life."

"The fullest?"

"An intense artistic life. The cleverest men in Paris talk over her work with her; the princ.i.p.al authors of plays discuss with her subjects and characters and questions of treatment. She lives in the world of art."

"Ah the world of art--how I envy her! And you offer me Dashwood!"

Sherringham rose in his emotion. "I 'offer' you--?"

Miriam burst out laughing. "You look so droll! You offer me yourself, then, instead of all these things."

"My dear child, I also am a very clever man," he said, trying to sink his consciousness of having for a moment stood gaping.

"You are--you are; I delight in you. No ladies at all--no _femmes comme il faut?"_ she began again.

"Ah what do _they_ matter? Your business is the artistic life!" he broke out with inconsequence, irritated, moreover, at hearing her sound that trivial note again.

"You're a dear--your charming good sense comes back to you! What do you want of me, then?"

"I want you for myself--not for others; and now, in time, before anything's done."

"Why, then, did you bring me here? Everything's done--I feel it to-night."

"I know the way you should look at it--if you do look at it at all,"

Sherringham conceded.

"That's so easy! I thought you liked the stage so," Miriam artfully added.

"Don't you want me to be a great swell?"

"And don't you want _me_ to be?"

"You _will_ be--you'll share my glory."

"So will you share mine."

"The husband of an actress? Yes, I see myself that!" Peter cried with a frank ring of disgust.

"It's a silly position, no doubt. But if you're too good for it why talk about it? Don't you think I'm important?" she demanded. Her companion met her eyes and she suddenly said in a different tone: "Ah why should we quarrel when you've been so kind, so generous? Can't we always be friends--the truest friends?"

Her voice sank to the sweetest cadence and her eyes were grateful and good as they rested on him. She sometimes said things with such perfection that they seemed dishonest, but in this case he was stirred to an expressive response. Just as he was making it, however, he was moved to utter other words: "Take care, here's Dashwood!" Mrs. Rooth's tried attendant was in the doorway. He had come back to say that they really must relieve him.